Looking for input! Planning stages!

A buddy and I are doing a 5 week bike trip starting in Canada, thru the US and into Mexico. Our families are going to fly down and meet us at a resort somewhere in southern Mexico for one week (probably Mayan Riveria). After that we are good to go. We would like to explore off the beaten path and on the way home spend some time in Copper Cannon. Looking for "Mexican travel experts" to give us some input.

Anybody needing travel info for Ontario or a place to crash just drop me a line.

Darryl

Darryl:
Mexico, as any other country has a lot to offer to adventurers, I think it will mostly depend on the kind of trip you want and the level of "comfort" you are looking for on this trip.
Camping in Mexico is good mostly on beaches that have the special "palapas" for that matter. I do not recommend camping in open-lonely places. Also small modest hotels are so cheap that I wouldn´t choose sleeping on the floor by saving 25-30 US Dlls that a room might cost (You can also find 500 dlls. rooms!)

Baja California is a paradise, lots of books specialised on this subject, maybe 7 days will make a nice & interesting (but basic) trip along the Baja peninsula from Tijuana to La Paz

Cooper Canyon is a MUST, also the pacific coast, Michoacan, Oaxaca, etc. But again it depends if you want to go to very touristy places like the Mayan Ribera or almost virgin beaches like Zipolite or Mazunte in Oaxaca.
Or Zihuatanejo (touristy but nice)

Guanajuato, Zacatecas, San Miguel de Allende are another style of Mexican pueblos, That is in the central part.

Another choice is the Native Mexico where you can visit all kinds of old native constructions like Paquime, Teotihuacan, Monte ALbán, Palenque, etc.

I think that your question is one very tough to respond for me, since there is so much to see and you have not that much time, Mexico is not as wide as Canada but it is very long! So in aprox. numbers I guess it will take you 1 to 1.5 weeks to get from Ontario to Mayan Ribera at a fair pace, this makes 3 weeks total of traveling for the round trip then you will have only 2 weeks for spending in the places you like so think how many places you want to visit and how much time you want to stay at each.

I as a Mexican can say that one or maybe the best publication on all kind of sites to visit is The Lonely Planet´s, if you can get one, it is worth it, you will see what I mean when you read its texts and see the photos.

If you give me some more info I will for shure help you recommend some good places at pinpoint. I hope this helps.

Have fun planning your trip



Humberto Moro
I got some pics of Mexican places in my site www.morocycler.smugmug.com

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THE Motorcycle JOURNEY is making known the unknown.
http://www.morocycler.smugmug.com

Senor Morro made some very good points.

I suggest making plans to 'blast' through the US, both outbound and inbound legs, maximizing your time south of the border. Buy some maps. I like the large ITM type of maps for overall trip planning. These can be found at most large bookstores. You'll also want/need a good road atlas for Mexico. www.guiaroji.com.mx has the best available.

Where will you spend your time? What's really important to you? Stick a map on the wall and list/mark your priorities. Mexico offers so much.

You will have a blast and want to return many times.

Guys,

We will be blasting straight thru the US directly to the Mexican boarder. We are planning 2.5/3 days hard riding to Brownsville Tx. Once into Mexico we would like to take our time traveling 300-400 miles max per day. We don't mind travelling every day as we want to see as much as possible. Is 300-400miles per day reasonable travel distance in Mexico?

Again, I really think Hotels are the way to go as it may be not be practical locating camping spots, carrying all the gear and equipment and cooking your food. We do not want to stay at expesive Hotels so cheap ones will be good as we have a fairly tight budget.

When we pin down where are families are going we can plan which areas we would like to explore and whether we should do it on the way down or on the return trip.

We will be going to Copper Cannon for sure. Whats the weather like in April?

Thanks
Darryl

Hey Darryl &Co.,
Mexico is indeed great riding country and a trip there can take however long you can afford the time. Give yourself breathing room with the daily planned travel distance allotment,.Instead of planning on 300 to 400 MILES per day , you ought to be downsizing your expectations to 300 to 400 kilometers per day, as an Ontario resident km will be familiar to you. Much more and you will wind up just racing past all the scenic stuff during the limited amount of daylight riding hours available between getting breakfast, riding a bit , stopping for pics, for pit stops and finding a place for the night before the evening then finding supper. This winter it took me more than two weeks , with a very meandering route to get fro m Eagle Pass Texas to Chetumal at the bottom of the Yucatan Peninsula. If I wanted to though I could have bee-lined along the Gulf coast and done it in a week or less. 500 to 600km days are only easily made in the desert interior of northern Mexico with the long thinly populated highways.

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http://advrider.com/index.php?thread....207964/page-5 then scroll down to post #93

Darryl:
From April on, many places in Mexico start becoming a microwave oven, May-June is the hottest, then the rain releases some cool.

Some time ago I posted this text for an adventurer who was planning some tight schedule thru Mexico, here is a copy of it, maybe it will help. 400 miles is a lot! for a day in a long distance trip, if you do it you will remember very little from the trip, maybe it is fun racing but I guess that is not the purpose of your trip.

Here it is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
QUOTE: "If we can average 45mph for 6 hours a day (good lunch, see some sights, stop early for camp), that's 270 miles per day, for 13.5 days of "easy" travel."·

My Posting:
I have been travelling all around Mexico and some countries in central America, roads are not that bad,they are fair and some pretty good, but you should consider:

I have records of all my trips taken from my GPS info and I can say that it is very very hard to get more than 46 miles per hour "Moving Time Average" in our roads (mostly on twisties), even when I speed up to more than 100 miles per hour on some toll roads I can barely pass the 46 miles per hour moving average for a day of 6 to 10 hours of ridding.

Plus, you will have to stop and eat, refuel, etc. So the Overall Average will drop some more.
Also consider that maybe the first couple of days you could make 650 or more miles but the next days your performance will be affected and you will feel comfortable only with much less miles per day than that, I mean, maybe 250 or so, per day.

Also consider that riding our latin american roads involves more fun but it also takes a bit (or much!) more of concentration, like being aware of suicide dogs, truck drivers, kids, F%&@ing TOPES, and TOPES, and More Topes! So probably you will have enough riding earlier a day than what you plan.

I am not discouraging you trip, MAKE IT! You will enjoy it very much but consider your time limits.

And as Grant advices, "If you don´t have enough time, do not go faster, visit less places, enjoy more"

Good Luck guys, if you pass by Guadalajara in Mexico, send me an e-mail, maybe I could join you for some miles, chat, or share some , you are allways welcome.

__________________
THE Motorcycle JOURNEY is making known the unknown.
http://www.morocycler.smugmug.com